In the hubbub surrounding the American Academy of Pediatrics' endorsement of circumcision this week, a single question remains unanswered: Does infant circumcision violate basic human rights?
Though opinions abound, it is largely a question without consensus, thanks to a complicated stew of medical, legal, religious and cultural beliefs surrounding the issue.
The academy's position that circumcision provides life-long health benefits is based on new evidence and differs significantly from its last public position, in 1999, which held that there was insufficient medical evidence to make a recommendation for or against the practice.
The academy's new direction will surely entrench beliefs and practices of those who support it and redouble the efforts of those who oppose it.
In the U.S., neonatal circumcision rates have dropped from a high of over 90 percent in the 1970s to about 33 percent today. In Europe, a 10 percent circumcision rate is high. Many nations have much lower rates, with England, Scotland and Wales the exceptions at 20 percent.
For both Jews and Muslims, circumcision is a religious and cultural practice. Within the last few weeks, Germany outlawed the practice of male circumcision for any but the strictest medical reasons. An atypical alliance of Jews and Muslims successfully challenged the German court's ruling and Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised to make religious circumcision practices (on males, but not females) legal once again.
Meanwhile, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and some other European countries are considering whether circumcision should be outlawed, all at a time when the globalization of the European workforce has brought an influx of people whose cultural and religious backgrounds require it.
Back in the U.S., outspoken opposition groups have proposed bans in Massachusetts, San Francisco and nationally. The San Francisco Fringe Festival in September will include a show titled "The Revolution Will Not Be Circumcised." In neighboring Canada, a "Foreskin Pride" parade was held recently.
Some American men feel so strongly about the damage done to them that they are working to restore their foreskins by stretching the remaining tissue to create what are humorously termed faux skins. To these men, circumcision is an abomination. Many are activists who lobby legislators routinely demanding legal protections for male infants just as female infants are already protected by the law.
The U.S. position is somewhat contradictory. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shied away from issuing a specific recommendation, U.S. foreign aid programs pay for adult men to be circumcised in several African countries where HIV/AIDS is rampant.
The U.S. military promotes and conducts circumcisions in many of these countries. This, too, is not without controversy. Although most African governments have supported these public health programs based on research findings that circumcision decreases the likelihood of HIV transmission by 60 percent, some Africans complain this is just another American effort to manage, control and even emasculate African men.
Thus, the new academy statement stirs the waters in which already swim a variety of cultural practices, personal beliefs and religious arguments for circumcision, as well as a large number of anti-circumcision groups advocating the opposite position. Add to the mix the occasional lawsuit against doctors, hospitals and/or parents who circumcised an infant believing it was in the best interest of the child. A lawyer in Atlanta specializes in malpractice cases involving botched circumcisions (including the Kentucky man who woke up finding his entire penis removed), and doctors in several cities specialize in cosmetic adult circumcisions and even re-circumcisions.
The human rights issue emerges out of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948, which proclaims that everyone has certain basic rights that supersede local laws, religious practice and cultural traditions. These rights include the right to life, liberty and security of person.
This declaration raises the thorny question of whether the decision to permanently alter one's body belongs only to that individual. It is a question not likely to go away. An international symposium will debate the matter in Helsinki in September, and the debate elsewhere will surely continue.
William M. O'Barr is a professor of cultural anthropology, sociology and English at Duke University. He is completing a book titled An Anthropologist Looks at Circumcision in American Life.
Why should a newborn boy have this cruel and dangerous surgery performed without his consent? Apparently this is because it is a command from god. But who's god? I believe that christians and jews have the same god but christians don't see the need to circumcise their male offspring. What happens if you are circumcised and then grow up to be an atheist or a buddist? It is all about ritual nonsense. Nature, not any god, is all powerful and nature gave us a foreskin. Leave it alone.
Circumcision may end when there are some successful lawsuits. Hit 'em in the bank account, and both doctors and mohels will quit amputating healthy pieces of infants.
http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/pdf/sorrells_2007.pdf
Someone was nice enough to create color-coded diagrams using the data from this study to visually show the areas of sensitivity:
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#sorrells
Google functions of the foreskin for more information.
Intact America has just published an excellent response in which they explain the flaws and bias in this new AAP statement.
http://www.intactamerica.org/aap2012_response
This is a listing of other nations' medical statements on circumcision which show they do not agree with the AAP:
http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/
For example, in 2010, the Royal Dutch Medical Association said, "there is no convincing evidence that circumcision is useful or necessary in terms of prevention or hygiene" and "non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors conflicts with the child's right to autonomy and physical integrity."
Finally, the following video is an excellent educational resource. It is narrated by Dr. Dean Edell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_bEBAdhjGg
The new AAP statement is an abomination. It's contrived to reach a very specific purpose, while denying that's its purpose at all. Just reading it makes you feel like good, solid research and ethics has been hijacked; you come away feeling "manipulated". I realize the AAP is nothing but a guild, but they ought to be ashamed of themselves. They would have done the American public a greater service by saying nothing at all.
Which leads us to the 1 billion dollar question: Why is the non-theraputic removal of an infant's foreskin LEGAL, while a "much less extensive" and "not physically harmful" procedure like the "ritual 'nick'" is ILLEGAL on the grounds that it's a violation of human rights?
Why people? Why.....why....why
There is a big disconnect as to talking about risk and the real harm of the erogenous tissue amputation. Those touted to be experts and the AAP task force are just cut men or women that don't have a clue about the VALUE of this NATURAL tissue. They don't know what a natural penis is (feels) like so they have no reference. They don't value the erogenous tissue with some 20000 fine touch and stretch nerve endings as well the blood vessels.... Removing a large part of outer skin and the very sensitive inner foreskin greatly affects sexual function and pleasure. These things were not a consideration, not part of the risk equation.
Many cut men do not regret circumcision as they have no clue about what they lost. And that is the point, these guys don't miss the 20000 pleasure nerves because they have no reference? Like a color blind person not understanding the value of color sight or a one eye person not understanding the value of 3D sight. This group of people making statements about benefits vs risks, when they don't understand the harm (how could they), would be funny but for all of the mutilations and sexual dysfunction that they will cause.
It’s funny how of all industrialized nations, the U.S. has both the highest circumcision rate and the highest AIDS rate. But the American medical community is constantly trying to justify the cultural practice of male circumcision, making it a reliable source of income for doctors, hospitals, and tissue engineers who use the discarded foreskins. The AAP's new statement is trying to prop up male circumcision as something that third party investors should continue to support, since many private insurance companies have stopped paying for it in the last couple years, and informed parents have caught onto the nonsense. They want our business back!
http://www.sueeasy.com/class_action_detail.php?case_id=258
1) The AAP omitted the fact that the foreskin is an important part of male anatomy with specific sexual, sensory, and protective functions. How can the AAP possibly recommend removing part of the body when they won't even discuss its functions? (Google functions of the foreskin)
2) The AAP failed to address the ethical problems with amputating healthy tissue from a child without that child's consent. Doing so without absolute medical necessity is a violation of the child's basic human right to an intact body and the right to choose for himself when he is an adult.
3) HIV prevention is not a valid reason for circumcising an infant who is not sexually active. HIV is easily prevented in other, less invasive ways. Other modern nations are not endorsing circumcision as an HIV prevention method. Also, a recent study from Puerto Rico shows that circumcised men in that area have higher rates of HIV and other STDs than intact men.
4) The AAP cannot credibly say the benefits outweigh the risks since they don't have good data on what the risks are. Few good studies have been done on the risks of circumcision, and no state or national system exists for collecting adverse event reports. Further, very little data is available on long-term complications. Without solid data on the risks and long-term complications of circumcision, any conclusion which weighs benefits vs. risks, or benefits vs. cost, is fundamentally flawed.
"However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.”
If they can convince 100 intact adult men to be circumcised, and then interview them every year for 20 years and get 85 of them to say circumcision is "not physically harmful" then, they will have something.
Until then, they are nothing but snake oil salesmen.
http://www.cirp.org/library/sex_function/
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/boyle1/